


Wide open spaces

by kitlee625



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Leverage
Genre: Gen, Pre-Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 05:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5078809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitlee625/pseuds/kitlee625
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After high school, Melinda May goes on a journey of self-discovery and makes an unexpected friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. June

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ddagent for encouraging me to write this crack idea, and to ddagent and sarahastro84 for beta reading it. The title comes from “Wide open spaces” by The Dixie Chicks.

Rome is beautiful, more beautiful than Melinda could have ever imagined, but after three days there, she begins to wonder if her trip has been a mistake. Backpacking through Europe is supposed to be a fun and relaxing way to spend her summer vacation. A chance to recharge and refocus herself before starting college in the fall. However, now that she is actually here, she only feels more confused and lost than ever.

Part of this she blames on her accommodations. Hostels are not known for peace and quiet, and her current bunk is in a room with four Australians, three Greeks, and an Englishwoman. The Greeks and Australians are loud and come and go at all hours, but it is the young woman from England who is the most annoying roommate. Despite arriving alone only two days earlier, she has already amassed a large group of friends amongst the other travelers, and every night they have stayed up partying until dawn. Tonight, exhausted after a long day of touring the Vatican, Melinda is determined to make them take the party elsewhere so she can finally get some rest.

When she gets back to the room, the woman is there, drinking beer and flirting with two admirers. She waves to Melinda.

“We’re going out to get a drink in a bit, want to come?”

Melinda shakes her head and goes to take a shower. With any luck, the room will be empty by the time she gets back, and she can get some rest and think about what she wants to do next.

Under the hot spray of the shower, Melinda considers her options. Her initial plan was to spend three months backpacking through Europe, and she has just enough money to do that as long as she lives frugally. However, part of her wonders if she should fly home early. Her parents certainly would be happy if she did that. They had been against the trip from the beginning, arguing that it isn’t safe for her to travel by herself, and that she should spend the summer preparing to start college. But Melinda had insisted, arguing that the trip would be a good life experience, and in the end, they couldn’t stopped her from going. She imagines how smug they will be if she comes home early, and for that reason alone she vows to stick it out.

On her way back from the shower, she notices that her room is even louder than when she left, and she groans. All she wants is to crawl into bed and go to sleep. She resolves to stand her ground and insist that they move the party elsewhere. However, as she draws closer, she realizes that the noise coming from her room sounds more like a fight than a party.

In the few minutes she has been gone, the mood in the room has changed dramatically. The two men are now standing menacingly above the young woman. One of them has his hands on her shoulders and is shaking her, while the other screams at her. As soon as Melinda enters, all three sets of eyes turn to focus on her.

“Get out,” one of the men demands.

Instinctively she takes a defensive stance and sizes up her opponents. The men may think that they are tough, but by the way they move, she can tell that they don’t have any formal martial arts training. Melinda has no doubt that she can take them.

“Leave her alone,” she says.

“Mind your own business,” the second man spits.

“This is between us and Lara,” the first man says.

Melinda takes a step towards them. “I said leave her alone.”

The first man laughs. “And who’s going to make us? You?”

The second man lunges towards her, but Melinda is ready for him. As soon as he grabs her arm, she uses his momentum to toss him to the floor. Before his friend can even register what is happening, she grabs him and shoves him face-first against the wall, his arm twisted painfully behind him.

Slowly she repeats, “Leave her alone.”

They do not have to be told again. The first man nods vigorously, and when Melinda releases him, they both run for the door.

Melinda turns her attention back to Lara who is staring at her with a look of amazement. She looks very vulnerable and young, definitely no older than Melinda.

“How did you learn to do that?” she asks Melinda.

“Six years of martial arts. Are you okay?”

She nods. “Thanks to you.”

“You should probably be traveling with someone. It’s dangerous to be alone,” Melinda warns her.

“Are you traveling with someone?” Lara counters.

“I can take care of myself. What happened with those guys anyway?”

Lara stares at her lap and shakes her head. “I don’t know. We were just talking and drinking, and then they must have had too much to drink because they got all angry and aggressive. I don’t know how to thank you.” Her voice cracks. “If you hadn’t come when you did….”

“It’s okay. They’re gone now, and I’ll be here for a few more days in case they try anything again. I’m Melinda, by the way. Melinda May.”

Lara gives her a weak smile. “Thanks for rescuing me, Melinda May.” She rises to her feet. “I need to run to the restroom. Do you mind watching my stuff while I’m gone?”

“Sure.” Melinda wonders if she should go with her, but Lara disappears before she can offer.

She waits for Lara to return, but when several minutes pass without any sign of her, Melinda starts to worry. She searches first the bathroom and then the rest of the hostel, but there is no trace of Lara. Back in their room, she searches Lara’s bunk for some clue to who she is and where she might have gone.

Her locker is completely empty, as are the shelves beside her bed, but when Melinda lifts up the mattress, she finds an envelope hidden underneath. Inside there are nearly a dozen stolen passports and wallets. 

She waits for several hours to see if Lara will returns, but she never does. Finally Melinda takes all of the evidence to the local police station, where she spends most of the night being interrogated. It takes a while to convince them that she is not Lara’s accomplice, but eventually they let her go.


	2. July

At this time of night, the train from Milan to Zurich is nearly empty. Melinda is the only one in her car aside from an older couple who fall asleep as soon as the train pulls away from the station. She is contemplating going to sleep too, wondering if her backpack will be safe, when she hears someone ask, “Melinda May?”

She looks up and is surprised to see the young woman from Rome. “Lara.”

“It’s Jenny now actually.” She slides into the seat across from her. “How are you?”

Her tone is warm and friendly, as if they are old pals from summer camp, but Melinda shoots her a wary look and refuses to answer. She wonders why Jenny (or Lara or whatever her name is) is talking to her. Just in case she is planning to rob her like she did those people in Rome, Melinda holds her backpack tightly against her chest.

For her part, Jenny pretends not to notice Melinda’s hostility. “I thought it was you. I saw you at the train station in Zurich, and I wanted to thank you again, for rescuing me from those guys. I had no idea that things were going to get so out of hand with them.”

“Really? Because I think someone like you should have been expecting something like that to happen,” Melinda says sharply.

She arches an eyebrow. “Oh? And why’s that?”

“You’re a thief.”

She is expecting some kind of protest or excuse, but Jenny just shrugs. “They were so rich, I didn’t think they’d notice.”

Melinda crosses her arms. “And that makes it okay?”

She shrugs, then frowns. “Are you going to turn me into the police?”

“I already did. Don’t go back to Paris.”

Jenny doesn’t look concerned. She leans back against the seat. “So, you figured out my secret. I’m impressed. I knew there was more to you than met the eye.”

Melinda doesn’t want to be pulled into the conversation, but her curiosity is piqued. “What does that mean?”

“I was watching you back in the hostel, trying to get a read on you, but I couldn’t quite figure you out.”

Jenny’s comment reminds Melinda of something that her mother would say. “Are you a spy or something?”

Jenny gives her an amused smile. “No. Are you?”

Melinda stares out the window and shakes her head.

“But you’re supposed to be a spy,” Jenny guesses.

She lets silence wash over them, not confirming Jenny’s suspicion but not denying it either. Silence is her preferred method of burying her secrets, but lately the weight of everything unsaid feels like it is suffocating her. There is no one she can talk to at home, not her friends or her parents. But here, away from her usual life and expectations, she feels oddly free to open up to this stranger who seems to already know too much about her.

“I’m supposed to start college in a month,” she says. “It’s what’s expected of me. The next step to follow in my mother’s footsteps. But I don’t know if I can.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I love my mother, but I don’t want to be like her.”

“You don’t have to be.”

Melinda shakes her head. “I think it’s too late for that.”

“It’s never too late to change yourself.” Jenny pauses. “You know, you don’t have to go back if you don’t want to.”

“Yes I do. My money’s going to run out, and everyone is expecting me.”

“So? You don’t always have to do what’s expected of you. It’s your life. Figure out who you want to be.”

“Is that what you did? Jenny or Lara or whatever you name is?”

“Yes,” Jenny says, but she does not elaborate further. “Look, it’s written all over your face that you don’t want to go back. So don’t. Come with me.”

It is hard to admit just how tempted Melinda is by Jenny’s suggestion, but she shakes her head. “And do what? Be a thief like you? I’m not a thief.”

It might be her imagination, but Jenny looks hurt for a moment. Then she shrugs it off. “If you change your mind,” she says, “I’m getting off at Lucerne.” She gets up disappears into the next car.

When the conductor announces the stop at Lucerne, Melinda watches Jenny get off the train. Part of her wants to get off too, but she hesitates for too long. The train pulls away before she can gather up the courage to jump off.


	3. August

Melinda is in serious trouble. She is supposed to already be on a flight back to DC, but instead she is sitting in jail in Budapest for getting into a bar fight. In her defense, she had only gotten into the fight to protect a woman who was being beaten by her boyfriend, but the police officers hadn’t seemed to care about that when they arrested her.

Her best hope to get out of jail is to call the United States Embassy to intervene on her behalf, but Melinda can’t bring herself to make the call. Doing so would invariably alert her mother, and she can only imagine just how angry and disappointed Lian May will be when she finds out. Of course, being with the Agency, there is the chance that she will find out about her daughter’s arrest no matter what Melinda does. A part of her is surprised that her mother hasn’t already swooped in to drag her back home.

As she debates whether it is safer to wait and hope that she is released soon, or to go ahead and call the embassy, she notices the sound of footsteps approaching the cell. There are two distinct sets — one the heavy clop of boots, the other the lighter click of heels. The boots are probably the prison guard, but she wonders who the heels are. Perhaps it is someone from the embassy, or worse the Agency, to bail her out. She steels herself for either possibility, but she is shocked when she recognizes Jenny walking towards her.

“There she is, Ms. Kroy,” the guard says.

When she speaks, Melinda notes that her usual English accent is gone, replaced with a convincing Boston accent. “On behalf of the United States Embassy, I want to thank you for your speedy work to resolve this misunderstanding.”

“Of course Ms. Kroy.” The guard unlocks the cell and gestures for Melinda to leave, but Melinda just stares dumbly at them.

Ms. Kroy looks expectantly at her. “Miss May, I’m Annie Kroy, with the United States Embassy. Your mother sent me to get you out of here.”

A small part of her wonders if this is true. Perhaps Annie (or Jenny or Lara) is an agent, and her mother is making her follow Melinda around on her trip. It certainly would be something her mother would consider. But that doesn’t explain the stolen wallets and passports, or their conversation on the train. No, Melinda knows that this is some kind of con, and when the real United States Embassy finds out about this, they will both be in serious trouble. However, knowing that does not stop her from stepping out of the cell and following Annie to freedom.

As soon as they are safely outside, Annie drops the Boston accent and says brightly, “Oh that was fun. I was really convincing, wasn’t I? Did you like the accent?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Getting you out of jail. You could say thank you, you know.”

Melinda crosses her arms. “How did you even know I was there?”

“I heard about a tiny Asian-American woman who got thrown in jail for beating up two huge guys in a bar, and I figured it had to be you.”

“So what, you just showed up and pretended to be from the US Embassy? It’s frightening that that worked.”

“Well, I might have threatened them with the wrath of the CIA as well.”

Melinda groans. “You did not do that. My mother is going to kill me. She’s never letting me out of her sight again.”

“You know I thought you’d be happy, or at least thank me for getting you out of jail without your mum finding out.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot. I’ll be flying home just in time for news of my arrest and your scam to reach her.”

Annie looks surprised. “Oh, you’re still planning on doing that?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t even know,” she admits. Then because she doesn’t feel like talking about her plans, she asks, “Why did you even break me out of jail? You should have just let me sit there.”

“Because I owed you for Rome. And -- don’t take this the wrong way -- but the times that we’ve met, you seemed a little lost. I thought you could use some help.”

“I seem lost? Every time I see you, you have a new name. Who are you, really?”

“I’m Annie now. And I didn’t say that I wasn’t lost too. But I’m figuring out who I am for myself. You can’t even decide if you want to do that, or if you’re resigned to a life set out by your parents.”

Melinda hates how this stranger can see past her walls so easily, but in a strange way, it is a relief. She stares off into the distance and finally admits the truth that she has been dancing around for weeks. “I can’t go back. I don’t know what I want, but it’s not what’s waiting for me there.”

Annie nods like she has been expecting this all along. “So what are you going to do?”

Melinda looks at her. “Is that offer to travel together still on the table?”

Annie smiles coyly, and Melinda senses that she is about to reveal a third reason why she broke Melinda out of jail. “Depends on what you’re up for. I’ve got this job back in London that I could really use a hand with.”

Against her better judgement, Melinda sighs and nods. “Deal.”


	4. September, October

They take their time getting back to London, traveling mostly by train and stopping wherever looks interesting. Whenever they do stop, Melinda makes a point to send souvenir postcards back to her parents, which confuses Annie. 

“Why do you do that?” she asks one day.

“To let my parents know I’m okay.” It is the least she can do after that very uncomfortable call she made from Budapest to tell them that she isn’t coming home. She still feels guilty whenever she remembers how worried and confused her parents had sounded, and she tries to push that memory aside.

“Aren’t you worried your mum will find you with these?”

Melinda laughs. “She can find me either way.” So far her parents have respected her request for space, but part of her wonders if her mother has some of her agents following her just in case. “What about you? Don’t you have anyone who’s worried about you?”

“My parents are dead,” Annie says flatly.

Melinda can tell that her friend doesn’t want to discuss her family, but her curiosity gets the best of her. “Annie’s parents may be dead, but what about Jenny’s or Lara’s?”

By the look on her face when she mentions Lara’s parents, Melinda knows that she has hit too close to home. Annie is quiet for the rest of the day, and Melinda notices that she never uses the Lara alias again.

Eventually she settles on Sophie as her every day name, but she still has a half dozen different aliases that she slips in and out of depending on the occasion, as easily as Melinda changes clothes. It is a skill that Melinda envies, and she wonders how Sophie learned it. As part of her spy training, Melinda would sometimes practice taking on another identity when she was out at a museum or having dinner with her mother, but it never came easily to her. She finds herself watching Sophie, wondering how she manages to be so many different people, and searching for clues about who she really is.

Sophie notices Melinda’s interest in her grifting skills, and eventually she teaches her not just how to play along with her aliases, but also how to create some of her own, and how to read their marks. In exchange, Melinda teaches her self-defense. 

Not long after that, they stop being tourists and start pulling jobs together. They start out small, conning men in bars out of whatever cash they have on hand, but the jobs gradually get more and more ambitious.

After one particularly difficult job, which requires Sophie to play identical twins and Melinda to pretend to be a Chinese actress, Sophie remarks, “We make a good team. You’re really a natural at this. Must be all the spy training you had.”

“I doubt my mother would be happy to hear that. Although she would like you. She’d probably try to recruit you.”

Sophie wrinkles her nose. “I don’t think I could do something so creepy.”

“You know, spies use their skills to protect people. We just use them to help ourselves,” Melinda points out. 

Sophie rolls her eyes. “Don’t be such a drag. You know you had fun back there.”

“That’s the problem. Stealing is wrong.”

It is not the first time that Melinda has questioned the morality of what they are doing. Usually Sophie just rolls her eyes and ignores her, but this time she looks annoyed. “Lighten up, will you? Honestly, sometimes I don’t know why I work with you. You’re such a downer.”

She crosses her arms defensively. “Why do you work with me then?”

“We make a good team,” Sophie says. “But I don’t have a problem with what we’re doing. If you do, then you need to figure out if you want to keep doing this or not. Nobody’s forcing you into this.”

Melinda nods. She doesn’t leave that day, but it does make her think more about whether this is what she really wants.


	5. November

If things looked bad in Budapest, that is nothing compared to London.

The job starts out simply enough. The mark is a man that Sophie knows from the last time she was in London.

“Absolute wanker, he’s some rich businessman who’s into smuggling and other shady stuff. Anyway, he has a fabulous art collection with very poor security. It’s practically begging to be stolen.” Her eyes are bright with excitement, but Melinda refuses to be dragged along so easily.

“No way. We could get in real trouble if we’re caught.”

“But we won’t be caught. Not the two of us together. I promise, Melinda, his security is a joke. We’ll be in and out before he even knows what happened.”

Somehow Sophie manages to convince Melinda, and at first everything goes according to plan. Sophie “bumps into” the mark, who is so excited to see her that he invites her to a party at his house the following day. While Sophie uses the party as cover to steal the painting, Melinda disguises herself as a caterer to provide their exit.

When she gets to the party though, Melinda finds that Sophie dramatically undersold the mark’s security. There are more guards than she had anticipated, and it takes all her skills to evade and neutralize them so she can get into position. She considers bailing a few times, especially as she waits at the rendezvous point for Sophie, who is a good twenty minutes late. When Sophie finally emerges from the vault with the most valuable painting in tow, Melinda feels a rush of relief. For a moment she thinks that they are going to get out of this with the goods, but before they can finish loading it into the car, the police show up.

Now, Melinda sits alone in a jail cell, contemplating the irony of the situation. She fell into a life of crime after Sophie broke her out of jail in Budapest, only to wind up in jail in London for art theft. Caught red-handed and facing a considerable sentence, she has just one get out of jail card left. She doesn’t want her mother to see her like this, but she knows she has no other choice.

As soon as the guard comes into sight, she announces, “I need to make a phone call.”

He looks bored. “Yeah, yeah. In a minute. But first you need to answer some questions.”

“I already answered your questions.” Answered is probably an overstatement, but she did listen and glare at them while they tried to interrogate her. She only hopes that Sophie did the same.

He smirks. “Not us. You’ve attracted the attention of a bigger fish.”

He leads her to the interrogation room, where there is an unfamiliar woman reading a stack of files. When Melinda enters, she looks up and gives her a pleasant smile.

“Ms. May, please have a seat. I was hoping you could answer a few of my questions.” She gestures to the seat across from her, and Melinda sits down stiffly.

“Who are you with?” Melinda asks.

She pulls a badge out of her pocket and flashes it. “S.H.I.E.L.D. I’m Director Peggy Carter.”

Melinda crosses her arms tightly across her chest. She had been nervous about seeing her mother or another CIA agent on the other side of the interrogation table, but S.H.I.E.L.D. is a whole other story. She does not know much about the covert organization, but she knows enough to be afraid of them.

“Who are you working for, Ms. May?”

It is the last thing Melinda expects her to ask. “I’m not working for anyone. I’m just a tourist.”

“Then what were you doing there?”

Given that they had been caught red-handed, she figures there is no point in denying the art theft. “We were trying to steal the Monet.”

Director Carter studies her carefully. “That’s all? You blew my operation back there and did quite a number on my agents, all to steal a painting?” 

Melinda nods.

“Not what I was expecting based on your file. But I suppose that explains why you dropped out of college before it even started.”

“That’s not why I dropped out of college,” Melinda says. “I did it because I needed to figure some things out first. Figure out who I wanted to be.”

“And who you want to be is a art thief?”

She shakes her head. “I’ve done some things that I’m not proud of, but I’m not a thief.” She’s not sure what she’s going to do after her mother gets her out of this, but she knew from the moment the officers put her in handcuffs that it was the end of her life as a grifter.

Carter leans back in her chair. “We have you on tape infiltrating the house. That was some impressive work. Who taught you to do that?”

Melinda isn’t sure how to respond to the unexpected turn the conversation has taken. “I took martial arts as a child, and I’ve picked up some things here and there.”

“Before you were on a path to join the CIA. Is that something that you’d still be interested in? Being an agent instead of being a thief.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to join the CIA.”

“What about S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

Melinda looks at her, too surprised to say anything.

“You have a very impressive skill set, Ms. May. You would probably make an excellent thief or CIA agent, but if you don’t feel that those two are your calling, then being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent could be a good alternative.” She leans forward. “S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t exactly the same as the CIA. Instead of controlling information, our mission is to protect people from whatever is out there. Is that something you’d be interested in?”

Without knowing it, she manages to hit much of what Melinda has been pondering these past few months. She does have a unique set of skills, but she has no idea how to use it. For a while she thought she would use them to be a CIA agent, but now she is not sure that she wants to keep secrets and struggle for power like that. Then, after meeting Sophie, she thought that she could be entirely selfish and use her abilities solely to benefit herself, but no matter how much fun it was, it never felt right. But using them to protect people….

She nods, and Director Carter smiles. 

“Excellent. I’ll talk to the officers about arranging your release, and then I’ll take you to S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy.” She rises to leave, but then stops herself. “By the way, who was your accomplice? I was going to talk to her about joining S.H.I.E.L.D. as well, but the police told me that she has already escaped.”

Melinda shakes her head. “I have no idea.”


	6. June, again

Melinda is on her evening run through the National Mall the next time she catches a glimpse of Sophie. She is sitting on a bench outside the Smithsonian Castle, her face half obscured by a large hat, and at first Melinda is not sure that it is really her. Six years have passed since the last time they saw each other. But it looks close enough that she circles around and passes her again, slowly enough this time that she can take a closer look. Her hair is longer and curlier, but it is unmistakably Sophie.

“I always worried about what happened to you,” Sophie calls out to her as she passes.

Melinda slows down and walks back to the bench where Sophie is sitting. “Didn’t stop you from leaving me there.”

“I figured you still had one get out of jail free card left. I didn’t,” she explains. Her eyes narrow. “I didn’t expect you to use it to join S.H.I.E.L.D. though.”

Melinda raises her eyebrows in surprise, and Sophie gestures at her running shirt, which is embroidered with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo.

“They wanted to recruit you as well,” she tells Sophie.

“Not really my style, working for Big Brother,” Sophie says. “I can’t believe that you agreed to it. You seemed so adamant that you not go into the spy business.”

“We protect people.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather protect myself.”

“Speaking of that, are you here for a job?”

Sophie makes a noncommittal sound and smiles coyly at Melinda. “Don’t worry. I learned my lesson about getting involved in S.H.I.E.L.D. business after London. No more marks who are secretly working for terrorist organizations.”

“Good idea.”

Sophie studies her. “You look different. Happier.”

Melinda nods. “S.H.I.E.L.D. suits me.”

“Too bad.” Sophie says. She glances at her watch and stands up. “You made a pretty good grifter. Anyway, it’s been lovely catching up, Melinda, but I really should be going.”

“How long are you in town for? We could meet for a drink sometime before you leave,” Melinda suggests.

Sophie shakes her head. “Sorry, can’t.” She gives her a small smile. “But maybe next time.”


End file.
